


It Started When Your Eyes Rolled Back In Your Head

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-11
Updated: 2011-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:49:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It started with a surgery. He'd say he was surprised by how it ended but that would be a lie...</i> Alex, Lexie and Mark. Dealing in their own dysfunctional way with the aftermath of the season six finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Started When Your Eyes Rolled Back In Your Head

It started with a surgery. A pro bono cleft palate repair in Tacoma.

Mark takes his own team. Karev because he's all about the kids these days and Little Grey because she's fucking them both and leaving her behind was never going to be an option.

It started with a surgery.

He'd say he was surprised by how it ended but that would be a lie.

After all, it had been strangely inevitable for months now. Sidelong glances and murmured innuendo that passed over the heads of those not intended for it anyway.

 

(It started with a surgery and ended with faded hotel sheets and fingers pushing apart willing lips. Heavy thighs slick with sweat and saliva, tequila spilled straight from the bottle and other cloudy fluids they won't bother to mention in the aftermath.)

 

*

 

It's a Tuesday night. Like that means something. And Lexie is still on shift.

They make sloppy promises to wait for her. Karev, all wide, confused frown, and him, doubting feigned restraint the moment they slip through double sliding doors. Far enough distanced to prevent the raising of suspicions that are unlikely in the face of suffocating extraneous drama anyhow.

It's a Tuesday night.

Like that means something.

He'd say he was surprised by the familiarity of flexed bicep under fingertips and ribcage against ribcage, but that would be a lie.

After all, they've been meeting this way for months now. And the difference between three and two is not so great in the grand scheme of things.

 

(It was a Tuesday night. Like that meant something. And Lexie was still on shift when hot water ran to cold and teeth left impressions on shoulder blades that flinched and floundered at the touch.)

 

*

 

It's a Wednesday morning. Cold and sleet and black ice.

She eases her body through a slivered gap in the door to a bedroom they don't officially share. At least, not by any formal agreement. Presses numb fingertips to her lips and firmly over a grin that she can't quite bite back, toes off her flats with an eager whimper, slips from her blouse and into the writhing fray in one fluid movement.

It's a Wednesday morning. Hot and pungent and red, raw skin.

She'd say she was surprised by the way they barely register her arrival, barely look up, barely take a breath. But that would be a lie.

After all, this has been coming for months now. And really? It just makes everything a whole lot simpler.

 

(It was a Wednesday morning. Cold and sleet and black ice erased with hot and pungent and red, raw skin. Scar tissue that never quite ages enough to heal and too much, not enough, never enough distance between them to matter.)

 

*

 

It's an unspoken arrangement. Has evolved over the course of mornings and evenings. Afternoons and deep, dark, dead of the nights.

Alex finds the routine oddly comforting. He thinks he gave up all pretense of control and self assurance the moment the two of them shoved a tube between his ribs and silenced his screams with salt water begging and white cotton gauze. Only recoiled reflexively on the first occasion a pair of tongues locked and traced the pattern of carnage across his chest.

It's an unspoken agreement.

And it extends to significantly more than just sex and self loathing.

He'd say he was surprised by the complete comfort they seem to find in the slap and slide of skin on skin and lips pushed high into sweat damp hairlines but that would be a lie.

After all, sex has always been something primal for him. An escape and evade that he's somehow managed to perfect.

 

(It was an unspoken agreement that evolved over days and weeks and minutes and slowly creeping segments of undefined time. Terrifying and comforting and a million other adjectives he'd never have the imagination to conjure.

Never have the guts to admit.)

 

*

 

Meredith finds out. It's the anniversary of the day everything blew up in their faces and they're beyond the stealth required to hide anything.

Lexie can't help but writhe and squirm under the scrutiny of a penny dropping... dropped. Guesses it was the lingering goodbye kiss she gave Alex and the exhausted hello hug she enveloped into with Mark. Lowers her lashes and pretends she can't quite fathom the warnings and recriminations that are bouncing off the surface of her skin.

Dares herself to wonder if her sister has really stumbled onto the whole, haphazard picture.

Doubts it as much as she believes it to be true in the same jagged exhale.

She'd say she was surprised that it took so long for a red-handed catch that no-one will bother to deny but that would be a lie.

After all, marriages have been and gone and the ghosts of babies that never were still haunt dark corners and dusty streets.

 

(Meredith found out on the anniversary of the day that ended as many lives as it started. They celebrated their desperate survival with designer beer and bourbon. With carpet burned elbows scraped to shiny bright red and the torn hem of a dress that looked so much better on the floor.)

 

*

 

The atmosphere between them shifts. Somewhere to the left and up high above their heads.

They each go through the motions because it's what they believe the others expect. A frenzied fury of limbs and lips. Saliva and sweat and mingled breath on unfamiliar skin.

Blood is shed. Literally and figuratively. Crimson rivulets that soak and seep in the aftermath.

They'd say they were surprised with the viciousness of the encounter, but that would be a lie.

After all, it's carnage that brought them together. It'll be carnage that tears them apart.

 

(The atmosphere shifted around and over them. Changed the game and re-wrote the unspoken rules.)

 

*

 

Mark turns his back. The door clicks to closed and he can tell from the muffled tread of sole on hardwood which of the inevitable two has arrived.

He feigns sleep because it's the lesser of all current evils. Evens out breathing that is degrees from being unconscious and digs fingertips that itch into feather-soft pillow at his shoulder. The dip and swing of weight settling is almost his undoing.

A freight train with the headlights switched to high beam, boring down the sun-baked metal tracks that they've tied themselves to.

Tightly and completely.

He'd say he was angry. At himself, at Karev, at anyone and everyone who'll get close enough to listen. But that would be a lie.

After all, they've both been expecting the end to arrive. An inevitable dissolution of binds that were beginning to tighten.

Noose-like.

 

(Mark turned his back when the door clicked to closed. Began a muttered mantra of apologies and hollow promises. Didn't stop until the sun rose and the space at his back was morning air cool and vacant once more.)

 

*

 

Lexie fucks him slowly. And with a tenderness that he'd been forgetting to associate with her. With them.

It's different when they're alone. When Mark's absence is celebrated by sleeping limbs that twine together. Muscle memory and comfort and a familiarity that has been soldered into the parts of him that he can't even pretend to control.

It gets infinitely more impossible to make believe that everything is okay.

Lexie fucks him slowly. Tenderly. Incongruous and shallow.

He'd say he was surprised by the unbridled fear that he'll wake up and she'll be gone as it builds and bursts within him, but that would be a lie.

After all, his seams have been splitting for months now and her hands are only so big. Can only hope to contain so much of his inevitable downfall.

 

(Lexie fucked him slowly and it already tasted like goodbye on his tongue. A gentle pull and a not so gentle push that left him spiralling an abyss that had no beginning and no end.)

 

*

 

Her hands shake. Panic and ice and the heavy, drowning, weight of knowledge.

She lets Mark undress her with reverent touch. Sighs as his breath melts against the rounded curve of her left shoulder. Uses her free hand to untie scrubs with a practiced ease that she refuses to think too much about.

They've come full circle and it's two now. Not three.

Maybe it never was.

Her hands shake under the heavy, drowning weight of what must come next.

She say she was surprised by the stunning evolution of whatever this is that they've been playing at but that would be a lie.

After all, it always was about Mark for her.

 

(Her hands shook as the panic and weight of what needed to be done was fully realised, grew to the size of something she could no longer pretend she'd yet to notice.)

 

*

 

It falls apart on his birthday. The sun shines, which is all kinds of irony and screamed _fuck you_ that curdles his blood to thick and rubbery.

They're still cleaning up from what is to become their last encounter when the news is dropped. A proverbial bombshell that shatters his bones to shards that scatter across the sweat stained sheets they've not yet stripped from the mattress.

It falls apart on his birthday while the sun shines through curtains shoved askew.

He'd say he was surprised that he didn't see it coming with a completeness that meant he had a back up plan firmly in place, but that would be a lie.

After all, his blood is still etched into linoleum floor and a familiar face with a bullet hole between her eyes follows his each and every move.

 

(It fell apart on his birthday but he didn't actually recognise the significance of the date until later. A greeting card in the mail post stamped at a location too close and too far and too nothing in between, familiar handwriting and the ghost of a girl he once loved, lost).

The End


End file.
